It's been a little over a year since Jackson Generals turf manager Marty Wallace and general manager Jason Compton went in front of Mayor Jerry Gist and the city council requesting an entirely new playing surface at the Ballpark at Jackson.

After the coldest winter in 20 years and the wettest June ever recorded in West Tennessee, the Bermuda has come in and now the playing surface is considered by many coaches and players as the nicest field in the Southern League.

The biggest reason for the new playing surface was to repair and replace the drainage underneath the field which had caused seven games to be rained out due to unplayable field conditions, sometimes hours after the storms had left the area.

The Generals have had three cancellations this season and Compton said it was because it was either raining at game time or there were impending showers headed toward the ballpark around first pitch.

Both Compton and Wallace said the new drainage systems underneath the playing surface more than exceeded their initial expectations when they presented the proposal to the city council.

"We've had games that we have played with no delay where we've taken two inches of rain in an afternoon that we wouldn't have played that night and may not have played the next day in recent past," Compton said. "It has done exactly what it was supposed to do.

"But, you can have the best field in the world, if you don't have good people taking care of it – it's only as good as your groundskeeper and your grounds crew."

The harsh winter prevented the new grass from rooting in spots forcing Wallace and his crew to bring in some additional sod to replace the spots that died.

Wallace, in his third season with the Generals, credits his staff for putting in extra hours fertilizing, aerifying and watering to help blend the new pieces with the existing sod to help the field come in.

"After about a week of the new sod being down you couldn't tell where the sod was laid," Wallace said.

There were times earlier in the season, before the Bermuda had begun to come in, when the playing surface was criticized on social media from people unfamiliar with the process.

Wallace said he tells his staff all the time if the field is criticized he is to blame. If the field is praised it is his staff that deserves the credit.

"That's what I always tell my staff," Wallace said. "I've got guys that just graduated high school. This is their summer job and they take a passion in it.

"Without my guys I would be nothing."

Wallace said during the hiring process before the season started he stressed to potential candidates the importance of making the playing surface safe for the players in the Southern League, and he feels he hired the right people with the right amount of passion to do the job this season.

"They do take a lot of pride in it," Wallace said. "It's really hard to find those guys that's going to take pride and work [hard].

"When I hire them [I tell them], 'Listen, we've got million dollar guys that are playing here. If we do something wrong and it hurts them we can jeopardize them, so we've got to shoot for perfection every night.'"

Compton said he truly believes he has one of the most passionate grounds crews in the Southern League led by Wallace, and it shows with the way the field looks game in and game out.